Wings of a Crane
by OssyReReFFN
Summary: It was just a normal case for Dr. Spencer Reid. That was unlike said case went from an investigation of dead women to an old, and possibly fabled, conspiracy of torture, forced birth, and experimentations. How so? Well, let's just say that they find a child during the raid. But this child is very different. For one, he has the features of a blue crane!
1. Prologue

It was just a normal case for Dr. Spencer Reid. A murder investigation into the deaths of 12 women, all of whom had to give birth before death. Oh? That's normal? Considering the fact that he was a SSA for the FBI, and more specifically the BAU, yep, this was normal. He often wondered what life would have been like if he hadn't joined the BAU. With 3 PHDs, 2 BAs, an IQ of 187, and able to read 20,000 words per minute, he has plenty of options. He often wondered what other jobs he could qualify for, even though he plans on never leaving the BAU. Although at the moment, Reid was a bit preoccupied from those thoughts due to showing a "magic trick" to some of his fellow agents, and close friends.

"So how does this work?" SSA Derek Morgan asked as Reid set it up, his back turned to the younger agent. Morgan was constantly worrying over the younger agent, even if he wouldn't admit it. He would admit, however, that he saw the younger agent as a little brother. Maybe that's why he was so protective? He didn't exactly know himself.

"Ah-ah-ah! A magician never reveal's his secrets!" Reid said, getting the mixture ready.

"I thought this was a science trick," JJ teased. SSA Jennifer Jareau, also known as JJ, was the BAU's media/police liaison, meaning she was what connected the media to the FBI. Often times, the media was helpful with catching an unsub, an unknown subject, by giving them either the real profile, or a fake one to bring them out of hiding. But she and Reid had a very special bond, as Reid was her son's godfather.

"You don't reveal those either," Reid snorted, "Alright! Turn around!" Both immediately did so and watched the cap. Bubbles started to form as the chemical reaction took place. Before either could ask Reid what was the point, the cap shot through the air…and smacked into SSA Arron Hotchner or Hotch as they called him. Hotch was the team leader, and a non-blinker, as many in the building would point out. His resting face was a slight frown with halfway closed eyes. He was constantly in said resting face while at work, so they rarely saw him smile. Despite this, he was a caring man, and a father to a young boy named Jack. He had been working at the BAU for decades now, and was a pro-profiler **{I'll leave}**. Morgan couldn't help but snicker at the fact that it actually managed to hit Hotch, while Reid had a hand over his mouth. Well shit.

"We got a location," Hotch simply said as he set the cap on Reid's desk, "And it's nearby." The team had been working on this case for months to find the source as to where the money was being sent.


	2. Description

It was just a normal case for Dr. Spencer Reid. That was unlike said case went from an investigation of dead women to an old, and possibly fabled, conspiracy of torture, forced birth, and experimentations. How so? Well, let's just say that they find a child during the raid. But this child is very different. For one, he has the features of a blue crane! But he isn't alone… He has a missing brother with the same mutations. Now the young fledgling boy is very timid, so who better to take care of him than the calm Spencer Reid? What could possibly go wrong?


	3. Chapter 1: The Raid

" _Have you ever felt like you weren't loved? Like you were just a mere object? Well…that's all I really am…an object…an experiment…" ~ Unknown_

I couldn't remember how long it's been…how long I've been trapped in this hell hole. My whole life, I think? The only thing that kept me happy was the only company I had. My little brother… Neither of us have names; at least I don't think we do… If we did, no one ever told us them. I was the oldest of us both by two years, but I'm only seven years old. Not to mention we never wore any shirts…at least we had our feathers to keep us warm.

 _Right…you don't know…_ See, me and my brother aren't normal. Our mother, who we never knew, was forced to have us. Before we were even born, we got injected with some DNA. More specifically, bird DNA. Mine was a blue crane, while my brother got a golden eagle. Lucky…I think the best part about being half bird is that we technically have wings for arms. Of course, they haven't fully developed yet, so they had patches of feathers. As for flying, I'm not sure if we can…but we had no way of knowing since we're almost always kept in a small cage. It barely let us both fit, so we were constantly squished together.

Normally when I looked up, I saw hundreds of other cages with other halflings in them, whether they were half bird, half lizard, or half rat. But today…I only saw twenty cages. For the past week, they've been taking cages and moving them. I don't know much about why, but I overheard them talking about the "FBI" closing in on them, whatever that means. But despite this, halflings that were grouped together in one cage were being put into separate cages. That meant it wouldn't be long before me and my brother were separated. We could both sense that.

My head jerked upward at the door opening and I held my little brother closer. I sighed in relief when the movers walked further away from us, but flinched when they started loading fifteen of the remaining twenty cages onto a mover's cart. Shrieks and hisses of terror rang out as they were pulled to one of the two lifts. My heart sank when I saw which one. The furnace lift…they were going to kill that batch…I guess they were too weak to make the ride to our new home. The cries of terror were soon silence by gun shots. They didn't have to suffer anymore…

My little brother started to sob, shaking from the gunshot sounds. He hated those sounds. He often had nightmares of being shot. I grabbed my blanket and wrapped it around us, as it always helped him calm down. I chirped softly as well, as that calmed him down too.

"W-Will they shoot us…?" He asked, shaking from fear.

"No, they wouldn't dare…" I replied, "We're both the strongest out of everyone here…we're too valuable to them…" I wasn't lying. We were the "prized" experiments, thanks to the fact that unlike everyone else, we had the intelligence of our human half, not our animal half. Not only that, but both of us were even smarter than the average human, with both of our IQ's being higher than 180. So I knew that we were both heading on the lift that took us outside. I also knew we would be getting a special house soon, one where our creators would let us walk around, and maybe be outside. Maybe…

The movers came in and loaded up the remaining five cages and got them to the furnace room. Odd…normally they would do the rest tomorrow…why were they speeding up? I didn't have proper time to run through all the scenarios as two moves approached our cage. I puffed out my feathers, even if it was a fruitless effort to scare them away. One opened the cage while the other grabbed my brother and pulled him out. He flailed his arms and let out shrieks of terror as he tried to get back to me. He was thrown into another cage while I was pinned down in mine, as I too tried to reach him. They locked our cages up and wheeled my brother away while other of us called for each other. "LET HIM GO!" I shouted at one of the movers. They ignored me and rolled my brother onto the other lift, disappearing from my view. I let out a wail of agony as I sobbed. My brother…my only family…we were going to separate houses…I would never see him again…I lay in my cage and cried, grabbing the bars with my strange hands. I knew this would happen. But it still hurt…

That's when I heard the lift move again…now it was my turn…I was terrified, so I hid under my blanket and peeked out through a small hole I had made with one of my talons on accident. Something was off…they weren't movers…I've never seen anyone like them before…they had guns, and vests on that said "FBI" on them…wait…FBI! I remember those initials! They're actually here…were they good guys, or bad guys? But they're the reason my brother and I were separated…so they had to be bad guys…right?

Spencer looked around the room, analyzing everything he could. "It appears that there was more than just one cage in here…" He said, seeing stains of at least fifty cages throughout this odd basement. The unsubs managed to escape with all but one cage.

"Holy shit…I knew there had to be at least ten missing women…but fifty?" Morgan said as he wiped the sweat from his head.

"Actually, I think there was more than fifty cages in here," Spencer said as he walked up to the only cage left in the room, "This one looks as if it had a second one on top of it. If we take that into account, I'd say we're looking at a hundred cages at least."

"A hundred?!" Prentis said. SSA Emily Prentis, once an undercover agent, and whose mother is an ambassador. She was another close friend of Spencer, and even helped him when SSA Gideon left the agency.

"At least and that's not taking into account the…" Spencer was cut off by a sharp pain in his ankle. He yelped and jumped away, looking down to see what attacked him. He was completely stunned when he saw it. Talons…


End file.
